Vistara chief says over 98 per cent pilots have signed new contract

Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan on Saturday said the airline hopes to stabilise operations for this month by this weekend and that more than 98 per cent of pilots have signed the new contract. The full service carrier faced significant disruption in operation earlier this week due to the non-availability of crew and many flights were cancelled.

In a statement, Kannan said the situation has already improved with its on-time performance improving for the last three days.

"We hope to stabilise our operations for the rest of April 2024 by this weekend," he said.


Referring to the new contract for pilots, he said some pilots have some concerns and queries regarding the contract.

The airline is engaging with them to clarify and resolve the concerns, Kannan said and added that "over 98 per cent of pilots have signed the new contract".

Vistara has around 1,000 pilots.

A section of pilots have raised concerns about the new contract that will result in pay revision, sources had said earlier.

According to Kannan, the airline is addressing the current situation on a war footing and continuing to hire more pilots.

The airline is also carefully scaling back operations slightly to provide the much-needed resilience, and a buffer in the rosters, he noted.